


Smoke and Ashes

by Rennaren



Series: Vices [1]
Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Kogami-centric, Newly minted Enforcer Kogami, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-11 01:07:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12924060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rennaren/pseuds/Rennaren
Summary: After being demoted to the rank of enforcer, Kogami returns to work at the MWPSB. But adjusting to a new life isn't that easy, especially when you've lost both your job and closest friends. Sometimes it's just simpler to lose yourself in a haze of the past, and the scent of Spinels.





	Smoke and Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> **Set in April 2110, just after Kogami's return to Division One as an enforcer.**

Kogami let the box filled with the things that had been cleared from the desk he had occupied as an inspector fall to the floor as the door to his new quarters, his cage, as an enforcer slid closed behind him.  
Today marked the first day of his return to the MWPSB since leaving the rehabilitation center, now demoted to the rank of enforcer. 

Kogami had initially emerged from the rehabilitation center feeling better than he had in weeks at the prospect of being able to get back to work, even with the stigma of being a latent criminal now attached to him. But more than anything Kogami had been eager to reconnect with Ginoza and try to repair as much as he could the cracks that had formed in their friendship before his confinement. Although Ginoza had seemed cold and distant on the few occasions they had spoken while Kogami was being ‘recruited’, he had assumed that was mostly due to the fact that their meetings were closely monitored. Having a proper conversation would be easier now that they could meet without a barrier of glass and security cameras standing in the way. 

But instead Ginoza had erected a wall of stony silence between them during the trip back to the MWPSB, rebuffing Kogami’s attempts at starting a conversation, and only acknowledging the enforcer when doing so was unavoidable. It had hurt more than Kogami had expected, even though he had anticipated that it would take a while for Ginoza to adjust to the changed situation.  
Once back at PSB headquarters Ginoza’s frigidness and surly reactions whenever Kogami spoke had made finally being allowed to leave the squad room and retreat to his quarters a relief even though a part of him had dreaded doing so after having recently undergone prolonged isolation while in the rehabilitation center.

Kogami ran a hand through his hair then rubbed at the tension gathered in the back of his neck as he looked around at the spartan appearance of his quarters, which were empty apart from minimal government issue furnishings and a few boxes which were piled in a corner filled with the contents of his apartment residence. Idly Kogami wondered who had taken the time to make sure his personal belongings were gathered and delivered here after he’d entered the rehabilitation center, before bending to pick up the box at his feet, carrying it over to the coffee table sitting on the far side of the room.

Taking the lid off the box once he had set it on the table Kogami began sorting through the contents, deciding which items he would take back and keep at his new desk in the squad room and what things he would find a place for here in his quarters. As he neared the bottom of the box Kogami’s fingers encountered a small plastic wrapped cardboard box that, when he’d brought into view, he realized was a pack of Spinel cigarettes which had belonged to Sasayama.  
Kogami’s fingers tightened on the container, the plastic making a slight crinkling sound, as he took a pained breath before intentionally relaxing his grip. A moment later Kogami opened the pack finding a lighter tucked inside, and pulled it out, flicking it’s flame to life briefly before setting the lighter down on the table’s surface. He had no idea how the pack had been missed when Sasayama’s things were being cleaned up or, if they had been on Kogami’s desk all along, how they would have ended up there in the first place and remained unnoticed. 

Turning his attention back to the pack of Spinels Kogami lightly pinched the end of one of the cigarettes between his thumb and forefinger. Sliding it out of the box he held the cigarette up studying it. _What did he like about smoking these anyway? When he knew the health problems they cause and the years they cut off your life?_ Kogami gritted his teeth at his next thought, which followed moments later. _…Not that they made any kind of difference where Sasayama was concerned._ To quell the surge of guilt and fury that flooded him Kogami crammed one end of the cigarette between his lips, dropping the box of Spinels in favor of snatching up the lighter off the table to light it.  
With the first intake of smoke Kogami coughed, gagging at the acrid taste that flooded his mouth and throat as he dove toward the waste bin nearby, thinking for a moment that he might be sick. Finally after a few minutes the fit passed and Kogami straightened, his eyes watering a bit, to turn back and pick up the still burning cigarette that had fallen to the, thankfully, uncarpeted floor. 

_Never mind what Sasayama liked about smoking,… how could he tolerate it in the first place? These things are terrible._ thought Kogami putting out the cigarette just as the boisterous laugh that the deceased enforcer would surely have let out had he witnessed what just happened, passed through Kogami’s mind. Smiling bitterly Kogami shook his head as he spoke aloud. “…Yeah, he probably would have gotten a laugh out of that.” Kogami muttered under his breath. 

Taking a breath caused Kogami to pause, then inhale more deeply as he caught a scent in the air that filled him with a familiar warmth. Closing his eyes Kogami breathed in again, the smell almost allowing him to imagine for a moment that the events of the last few months had simply been a nightmare and instead of being dead Sasayama had only stepped out for a time, leaving the smell of smoke lingering behind him.  
Kogami’s gaze moved to the fallen box of Spinels, he hesitated for a moment then reached out to pick it up. Slowly pulling out another cigarette Kogami lit it, closing his eyes again as he let the scent of tobacco fill the empty room.

**~~~~~~**

Kogami tore another bit of tape off the roll he was holding using it to add a scrap of paper with some scrawled notes on it to the wall above the desk he had tucked in the innermost room in his quarters. He paused to study his work so far on the make-shift evidence board he had been building in the days since his release, then glanced down at the photograph of himself and Sasayama that was laying on the desk next to an ashtray which held a single burning cigarette that was slowly spreading the smell of tobacco into the air. Picking up the photo Kogami held it, simply studying the picture for a while, before carefully applying some tape to the back of it and adding it to the wall.  
Distantly Kogami heard the sound of the door to his quarters sliding open, followed by sharp footsteps striding in to about the center of the main room before pausing. “Enforcer Kogami, show yourself! I need a word with you.” came a familiar voice which Kogami instantly recognized as Ginoza’s.

“In here Gino.” called Kogami as he bent to gather up a stack of binders off the floor trying to make the room seem a bit less of a mess, even though he was still working on organizing things to his liking.

Ginoza frowned, sniffing a bit as he stepped further into the room, before looking around until he spotted the burning cigarette resting on the edge of the ashtray. Striding across the distance to the desk Ginoza snatched the cigarette up, waving it in front of Kogami’s face accusingly. “So it wasn’t enough that you let yourself get so caught up over the life of one dog that you made yourself a latent criminal! Now you’re picking up his filthy habits too!” said Ginoza as he crushed out the cigarette while shooting Kogami a burning glare. 

Gritting his teeth at the insult to Sasayama, Kogami surged to his feet fighting to stay calm as he turned toward Ginoza. “Gino, that’s not…” began Kogami before being cut off with a sharp wave of Ginoza’s hand as the other man interrupted what Kogami had been about to say. 

“That’s enough enforcer! I don’t want to hear it.” snapped out Ginoza before thrusting out the sheaf of papers he had carried in with him. “The only reason I came down here is because of these. …Just what do you think you’re doing, wasting the division’s resources on this?! It has been made quite clear that this case is closed. And you’ve already been told explicitly to let it go!” 

Glancing down Kogami saw that Ginoza was holding out the printouts of the files from the Specimen Case that he had begun making earlier after he’d thought that everyone had left the squad room for the night. Reaching out to grab hold of the papers before Ginoza could snatch them out of reach again, Kogami looked at the raven haired inspector who was looming over him as much as their slight difference in height allowed. “What do you care, ‘Inspector’? So what if a ‘dog’ wastes his off duty hours on a closed case? It’s not like I’ll be able to do anything anyway without your ‘permission’.” bit out Kogami tugging at the stack of papers as Ginoza tightened his grip in response, creating a slight tug of war between the two men as they glared at each other, before Ginoza’s fingers slipped allowing Kogami to jerk the papers free. 

“Enforcer I demand that you-…!” began Ginoza, stretching out a hand to retrieve the stack.

“Besides my crime coefficient is already shot.” added Kogami as he turned away with his spoils, presenting his back to Ginoza. Setting the papers in front of him Kogami snatched up the box of Spinels, shaking one out and lighting it before taking a defiant lungful, suppressing his need to cough as he continued. “If the paper’s such a big deal just take it out of my allotment.” 

Harsh breaths sounded behind Kogami for a moment as Ginoza wrestled for a retort, before clicking his tongue sharply, the soles of echoing against the polished floors as Ginoza left.

 

Sighing as his anger at Ginoza waned with the inspector’s departure Kogami coughed a bit, though the urge to do so had been lessening over time, before setting the cigarette on the edge of the ashtray where the last one had been. Looking down at the slightly wrinkled and torn page in front of him Kogami tried to take comfort in the familiar scent of the cigarette smoke and the memories of happier times that accompanied the smell.

**~~~~~~**

Ginoza’s voice filled the air of the squad room even more thickly than the smoke of Spinels as he and Kogami were the last of Division one still working at finishing up the reports on the case they had just closed. “…And another thing, I insist that from now on you restrain yourself from smoking while here in the squad room rather than continuing to inflict on the rest of us your second hand smoke! Not that I’ve kept track but that’s the second pack you’ve gone through this week and it’s only Wednesday.” said Ginoza as he stood to begin gathering up some things from his desk. “Now about these reports…”

Gradually tuning out Ginoza as the inspector continued ranting, Kogami’s mind wandered back to a time when he himself would occasionally lightly reproach Sasayama for his habit of smoking, usually when the enforcer would complain about it having been banned by his inspector again.

_“I’m in agreement with Inspector Tezuka. …Smoking is bad for you isn’t it?” Kogami had said, to which Sasayama had laughed in response before challenging Kogami to a round of sparring, with the assertion that it would prove smoking hadn’t negatively affected him._

Kogami grinned at the memory of their fights, remembering the surge of adrenaline as they had sparred, testing one another’s skill and resourcefulness in battle. It had only added to the sense of closeness he had felt when Sasayama would offer his perspective on the cases Kogami had been working on while they sparred, even though Kogami had ultimately ended up losing a more than fair share of the matches. 

“…Hey! Enforcer Kogami! …Are you even listening to me?” The sharp voice which had risen suddenly in volume shook Kogami from his memories and he looked up as Ginoza dropped an armload of files on Kogami’s desk after having all but kicked Kogami’s chair with his foot to regain his attention.

“Yeah, yeah…” muttered Kogami as he was jerked back to the present. His grin faded as he looked down at the pile that Ginoza had set in front of him. “You can lay off already, Gino. I’ll take care of the reports.” 

Scoffing Ginoza’s eyes flicked to the cigarette in the ashtray sitting on Kogami’s desk for a moment before he settled his glare on the enforcer once more. “Fine. …See that you do.” The raven haired man spat before turning away.

Kogami sighed as he turned back to his work, reaching out to pick up the first in the stack of files that Ginoza had left.

Lately Kogami had found himself increasingly lighting the Spinels not only with the intention to use their scent to help his concentration, but at times to actually smoke them, in a sort of indirect revenge after a particularly harsh session of being chewed out by Ginoza.

Months passed that way and at first Ginoza would deny his requests for more cigarettes when they were submitted, glaring at Kogami from behind his inspector’s desk while watching as Kogami smoked his way through his current pack of Spinels. Once they ran out Kogami put up with the lack of concentration, effecting his performance in the field and causing Ginoza to nag and yell more than he did already, which exacerbated the headaches and irritability that plagued Kogami as he began experiencing withdrawal symptoms. At least until the cravings and insomnia during the dark nights in his quarters after yet another difficult and trying day, drove Kogami to beg another cigarette or pack off one of the enforcers from another division to tide him over until Ginoza caved to his repeated requisition requests, starting the cycle anew. At this point Kogami knew that he had become addicted to the nicotine in the cigarettes, but nothing else seemed to help his focus so much as he worked on their current cases, or push back the depression that threatened to hollow him out. 

Then at some point Ginoza seemed to give up, and began filling Kogami’s requests for another pack of Spinels without protest when he received them, rather than continuing to allow others to feed his enforcer’s need for them. Kogami wasn’t sure which was worse, the continual boiling tension between them, or the thought that none of what had gone before really mattered any longer to his friend and the loss the Division had suffered was already forgotten.

After a while it was easier and easier for Kogami to simply light another cigarette and ignore anything besides Division One’s current case load and his search for a lead in the Specimen Case. Filling his lungs until they burned painfully, he cloaked himself in smoke, buried his feelings in the ashes of friendship and his cigarettes, while clinging to the small, faint sense of comfort to be found in the scent of tobacco.

**Author's Note:**

> After reading the conversation referenced above between Sasayama and Kogami about smoking in the Inspector Shinya Kogami manga, I started thinking about just when and why Kogami would have started smoking, especially as heavily as he does. (20-30 cigarettes a day Kogami, really? Maybe cut back a little?...)  
> The headcanon emerged that like Akane does later after Kogami left, Kogami initially started out lighting Spinels to remember Sasayama and happier times, then later actually started smoking them to annoy Ginoza after being accused of smoking them anyway.  
> All that resulted in this story. 
> 
> You can follow me on Twitter [@RennarenofAO3](https://twitter.com/RennarenofAO3)


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